Sharon Dowell honors Charlotte’s inhabitants with her designs for the 25th Street Station, exploring the energy of place through architectural forms and the figure. Use of color is integral and transformative to the station, filtered through her signature painting style and projected onto station elements in the form of windscreens, column cladding, and unique mosaics. Vibrant colors and the graphic nature of the art will read well from far away or up close. ​

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Mosaic Tile Walls

Tiles in hues of mandarin, kiwi, teal, and gray will pepper over 400 running feet of walls and long ramps leading up to the raised platform. Colors from these mosaics will bleed up into the railings above, as if their energy cannot be contained.

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Windscreens

The architectural imagery is derived from photographs of uptown Charlotte buildings under construction and represents progress, the future and the energy of the city.

This windscreen imagery, rendered in layers of rich black, pink and orange will be printed onto a film that will be laminated between sheets of glass.

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Likewise, the people inhabiting the windscreen glass panels are the real heart of the city. Silhouettes of residents represent their diverse races, socio-economic status, occupation, etc.

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Benches & Column Cladding

Seated amidst these windscreens, benches along the platform will be painted teal and kiwi, reiterating the color of the mosaic inserts. The column cladding at the base of the canopies will be powder coated in black and laser cut in patterns again referencing the busy urb​an landscape.

Apart from her artful use of color, the cohesiveness of Dowell’s design lays in its ability to join ideas pertaining to both general urban development and Charlotte specifically. By abstracting images of Charlotte’s architectural landscape and inhabitants, she allows her designs to appear relevant to both neighborhood communities and the larger population of riders.

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​​Artist Bio

Sharon Dowell earned her BFA in painting, Cum Laude, from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and now teaches and coordinates the Rowe Art Gallery on the same campus. She has been honored as Charlotte Magazine’s Best Artist (2012) and Creative Loafing’s Best Local Artist (2008) and her paintings are featured in several corporate collections. Her 2009 Central Avenue Mural commission from the Arts and Science Council for the City of Charlotte began her public art career, adding to her already extensive list of exhibitions across the country.